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Well, I hope that official fglrx 10-4 (and ubuntu 10.4) will be much better than pre-released ones. As for now they are extremely buggy... atleast for me :
1. with configured 2 monitors on xinerama, my system freezes if I move my mouse to the secondary monitor
2. only on one monitor I get full screen blinking (god knows why), LCD goes black and back to orginal picture.
3. 10-4 ignores ingame gamma settings. I can workaround it with xgamma, but that's not the point.
4. overall performance regression in 3D games (q3/urt/ql/hon).

This is kinda annoying, because on fglrx 10-3 @ ubuntu 9.10 everything was just fine.

Sorry to interrupt but I was wondering how many patches are needed and for which problems/issues/features. I suspect some people who already have ATI cards get annoyed at my (and others') generic questions so maybe I should shut up or buy a card already. But, I just want to know what I'm getting into if I buy a card. I like the suggestion to get a cheaper card and wait: the HD 4xxx cards will probably still have a market and then I could wait for the newer Fermi or A) just keep the card or B) upgrade to HD 5xxx if everything is progressing nicely.

I thought it might be useful to have a chart like the x.org wiki chart except that it lists various patches and authors links to either here (where the patch code is discussed) or someone's page (for e.g., a blog). If patches are needed often, it might save some time and be helpful. Maybe make for less frustration? Just a suggestion.

One other comment I wanted to make. A lot of 'pro-ATI' ppl saying to get ATI card for open source and how things will ultimately improve. A nice ideal is good but what about laptop owners with ATI cards? They can't just 'give up' and switch to Nvidia. If progression with drivers is slow and there's bugs, they have to live with them. I know if I had a brand new laptop with an ATI card, I would want power saving and full features working. I'm not going to wave a towel and yell, 'yay, open source.' I just want things to work. I guess if you have an extra computer, you can wait but what if your only computer has an ATI card?

Ideals are great but if ATI/AMD truly wish to support Linux, this 'progression' needs to happen faster and more features have to be included (XvMA, hardware acceleration, power saving etc.). You can have the best hardware in the world but if the drivers don't allow you to use the card to its fullest or what you want to do, then it's all moot.

I was wondering about fglrx in the latest Ubuntu because I would probably change my desktop system over to it when it's released. So, if it happens this timing coincides with a video card upgrade, I wanted to have some idea of what to expect if it's an ATI card.

Some great replies/responses so far and many thanks for some valuable info! I'll keep reading with great interest and it should help make my decision easier. My current GPU is a EVGA 7950GT and it might be fine still but I haven't stressed it all really. So, I'm not sure how it'll go if I do anything else with it. It should be fine but I don't like being without a backup card. I think I have an ATI X300SE still but I loaned it to someone as their backup.

Not sure I understand the question. Other than early support for new kernels (which isn't usually an issue on supported distros) there has only been one patch discussed, ie the "backclear" patch Felix provided to replace the old "104 no backfill" patch that most distros had been shipping for years (until early 2009).

The binary drivers already have the features you mention, with the possible exception of XvMA (what is that ?).

Honestly, I don't think asking more questions is going to help. You're already deep in the "it depends on other decisions you make" zone, where other people's experiences are only peripherally relevent to what you experience.

If you want to collect more useful experience I think you need to start building a more specific set of questions, ie "I'm planning to do *these* things on *this* distro with *this* other hardware". That way people will be able to give you more specific answers and you won't have to keep asking all the "but what if something goes wrong ?" questions that nobody can answer anyways.

Sorry, one last part to the other post: I was wondering how temps in Linux. My current card, as I said, 7950 GT gets about 47 to 50 degrees, give or take, idle. I think it's around the same in Windows. I haven't really compared it, lately. I don't know if this is typical for this card but it seems acceptable.

I'm wondering how a HD 4850 or HD 4770 would do for temps in Linux and whether there's a big change depending on whether you use FOSS driver or the FGLRX driver. So, 1) what are the temps? 2) what are the temps using a)foss driver; b)binary fglrx driver

Also, of course, I am curious what they are with the card idle and with it working hard, like in a game.

I guess power consumption would be something of interest, too, but is power saving features working in the current FOSS driver or FGLX? Or does it depend again on circumstances? For e.g., using latest Ubuntu Lucid and latest 10.4 fglrx or later impacts the feature?

I should have included this question in my other post as it's more related to the topic.

Not sure I understand the question. Other than early support for new kernels (which isn't usually an issue on supported distros) there has only been one patch discussed, ie the "backclear" patch Felix provided to replace the old "104 no backfill" patch that most distros had been shipping for years (until early 2009).

The binary drivers already have the features you mention, with the possible exception of XvMA (what is that ?).

If you want to collect more useful experience I think you need to start building a more specific set of questions, ie "I'm planning to do *these* things on *this* distro with *this* other hardware". That way people will be able to give you more specific answers and you won't have to keep asking all the "but what if something goes wrong ?" questions that nobody can answer anyways.

That's fair. I thought I read of other patches on here. Patches to fix various issues and such. I could be mistaken. My fault for not noting it or being specific.

Okay, in the future, I'll give a specific outline of what distro I'd use and the application or exact feature I'd want. For starters, something simple: 1) If I were to use Ubuntu 10.04 (so Gnome desktop or possibly, LXDE) and latest FOSS driver and switching to latest FGLRX when required...to use MPlayer and play DivX/Xvid/MOV4/HD files.
2) playing Youtube video - streaming video

Sorry, one last part to the other post: I was wondering how temps in Linux. My current card, as I said, 7950 GT gets about 47 to 50 degrees, give or take, idle. I think it's around the same in Windows. I haven't really compared it, lately. I don't know if this is typical for this card but it seems acceptable.

I'm wondering how a HD 4850 or HD 4770 would do for temps in Linux and whether there's a big change depending on whether you use FOSS driver or the FGLRX driver. So, 1) what are the temps? 2) what are the temps using a)foss driver; b)binary fglrx driver

Also, of course, I am curious what they are with the card idle and with it working hard, like in a game.

I guess power consumption would be something of interest, too, but is power saving features working in the current FOSS driver or FGLX? Or does it depend again on circumstances? For e.g., using latest Ubuntu Lucid and latest 10.4 fglrx or later impacts the feature?

I should have included this question in my other post as it's more related to the topic.